Editorial: Thank-you Pauline, mission accomplished!

23 February 2011

With this issue of the e-News, a chapter of ATLAS history comes to an end. It is a small chapter, but one which has grown dear to our daily life in the experiment.

The e-News in their present form have accompanied us through the construction, installation and commissioning of the detector to the exciting times now of first physics at the LHC. Not only technically, but also humanly, the e-News witnessed these last years of the dream becoming a reality. One colleague has shaped and steered as main editor these lively bi-weekly accounts since almost five years: Pauline Gagnon.

The Collaboration owes Pauline a big and warm 'thank you' for her great job in motivating people to share their excitement, work and challenges with the Collaboration in an accessible way for all. It became quickly visible when she took on the editorial task in May 2006 that her ambitious goal was to change the e-News into a frequent and regular journal, keeping up the pace with the fast changes happening in the experiment's life. Everybody in ATLAS should feel part and proud of the stunning progress achieved by the Collaboration on all fronts. The e-News should allow people from outside ATLAS to also feel the excitement and get the 'pulse of the actions' of an unprecedented experiment coming into operation. The result of her efforts can be summarized with a straightforward and wholehearted: 'Mission Accomplished'!

Pauline has accomplished her task with a dynamic editorial team, having had the pleasure to work with several talented young journalists. Many thanks are also due to them, of course, and in particular to the present editorial team: Birgit Ewert and Ceri Perkins. After Pauline's departure in December, and with Ceri moving on to other projects this month too, the e-News as we know it will go through a phase change that will be shaped in the coming weeks. And Pauline will be off for new challenges: her dedication to communicate science to the broader community and the public will continue in the coming year with the CERN Communication Group, besides of course enjoying ATLAS physics analyses. We wish her all the best!